Dr Mary Tate

Senior Lecturer,
School of Information Management

Introduction

Mary teaches primarily in the areas of electronic commerce and information systems research. Her personal research interests are theory and philosophy, e-services, website and web portal quality, multi-channel e-commerce strategy, information behaviour, e-Government, and cloud computing. Mary has an extensive background as an IT practitioner, with over 20 years experience in service delivery, project management, website management, and business analysis.

Qualifications

BA(Hons), Massey; PhD, Victoria

Administrative Responsibilities

• Member of the SIM Human Ethics Committee
• Moderator for international offerings of INFO courses at partner institutions

Current Research

• Case studies in e-Government.
• Projects with Dr Joerg Evermann (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada), including:
  - Theories of user attitudes and perceptions towards information technology
  - Theory building using quantitative methods
  - Improving the accuracy and salience of information systems theories
  - Applications of advances in psychometric research to information systems
• Projects with Dr Elfi Fuertmueller (University of Twente) on eHRM systems

Ongoing Research

Mary’s "grand tour" question examines the impact of introducing technology into the customer relationship, and she is involved in local and international collaborations examining aspects of this topic. She has developed a strong interest in information systems theory, and in association with Dr Joerg Evermann has been working on a series of projects aimed at improving the quality of theory building and measurement for theories of user attitudes and perceptions towards technology.

PhD Study

Mary's PhD concentrated on electronic self-service offerings, entitled "Reflections on Online Service Quality: Theory, Ontology, Measurement and Antecedents." She was an inaugural winner of the Dean's Award for Doctoral Achievement in the Faculty of Commerce and Administration in 2010. This award was instituted in the Faculty to recognise excellence in the quality of research and writing in the very best of our doctoral theses each year.

Research Funding

• Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grant to research a global information systems success measurement model (2010)
• Strategic Research grant from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Victoria University of Wellington (2009)

Selected Publications

Refereed Journals

Sylvester, A., Tate, M. & Johnstone, D. (forthcoming). Beyond synthesis: Re-presenting heterogeneous research literature. Behaviour and Information Technology.

Evermann, J. & Tate, M. (forthcoming). Fitting covariance models for theory generation. Journal of the Association of Information Systems.

Tate, M. & Johnstone, D. (2011). ICT, the line of visibility, and changing perceptions of organisational competencies. E-Service Journal, 7(2), 66-98.

Tate, M. & D. Hoshek. (2009). A model for the effective management of re-usable learning objects (RLOs): Lessons from a case study. Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning & Learning Objects, 5.

Tate, M., Johnstone, D., Toland, J. & Hynson, R. (2007). How the current orthodoxy of local government is failing IT managers: An illustrative case study. Electronic Government: An International Journal, 4(4), 509-526.

Tate, M., B. Coker, et al. (2005). Moving to multi-channel e-commerce: A case study of an apparel and home-ware catalogue company. Journal of Internet Commerce, 4(2), 3-32.

Tate, M., Hope, B. & Coker, B. (2005). The Buywell way: Seven essential practices of a highly successful multi-channel e-tailer. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 12 (2), 147-63.

Johnstone, D., Tate, M. & Bonner, M. (2004). Bringing human information behaviour into information systems research: An application of systems modelling. Information Research, 9(4), Paper 191

Book chapters

Yang, H., Huff, S. & Tate, M. (forthcoming). Managing the cloud for information systems agility. in Al Bento & Anil Aggarwal (Eds), Cloud computing service and deployment models: Layers and management. IGI Global.

Tate, M., Evermann, J. & Hope, B. (2008). Stakeholder expectations of service quality in a university Web portal. In D. Oliver, C. Romm & F. Sudweeks (Eds.), Self-service and the internet. Springer.

Coker, B., Hope, B., Tate, M., (2007). Ezibuy: A multi-channel success story. In Val Hooper (Ed.), New Zealand case studies in information systems (pp. 36-40). Auckland, Pearson Education New Zealand.

Tate, Mary, Brent Coker and Beverley Hope. (2005). Beauty is more than skin deep: Organisational strategies for online consumer risk mitigation in apparel retailing. In M. Khosrow-Pour (Ed.), Advanced topics in electronic commerce (pp. 312-40). Idea Group.

Refereed Conference Proceedings (2009-2011)

Gong, H., Lips, M. & Tate, M. (2011, forthcoming). Understanding and comparing e-campaigning utilisation in the 2008 New Zealand general election. Paper presented at the HICSS-45 Conference, Hawaii.

Furtmueller, E., Wilderom, C. & Tate, M. (2011, forthcoming). Recruiters and the dilemma of finding the right match in our flat world. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Meetings, San Antonio, USA.

Gong, H., Tate, M. &  Lips, M. & (2011, forthcoming). Revisiting the conceptualisation of e-campaigning: Putting campaign back in e-campaigning research. Paper presented at the Conference on eParticipation (ePart), Delf, The Netherlands.

Evermann, J. & Tate, M. (2009). Building theory from quantitative studies: Or how to fit SEM models. Paper presented at the International Conference in Information Systems (ICIS), Phoenix.

Evermann, J. & Tate, M. (2009). Constructs in the mist: The lost world of the IT artifact. Paper presented at the International Conference in Information Systems (ICIS), Phoenix.

Tate, M. & Evermann, J. (2009). Perceptive users with attitudes: Some heuristics on theorising. Paper presented at the International Conference in Information Systems (ICIS), Phoenix.

Tate, M. & Evermann, J. (2009). Descendents of ServQual in online services research: The end of the line? Americas Conference in Information Systems (AMCIS), San Francisco.

Tate, M. & Johnstone, D. (2009). ICT, the changing line of visibility, and customer impressions of organisational competencies. Americas Conference in Information Systems (AMCIS), San Francisco.